


The Tapes

by assholeachilleus



Series: Deaf!jon au [13]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Deaf!Jon, M/M, Trans!Martin, headarchivist!sasha, plot progression yay!, writing this rlly felt like a scooby doo episode sjdkfjd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29135436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assholeachilleus/pseuds/assholeachilleus
Summary: Jon and Sasha solving mysteries and looking good whilst doing it. Part of my deaf!jon au but can be read alone.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Deaf!jon au [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072478
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	The Tapes

**Author's Note:**

> ao3 rlly logged me out of my account and was like look who came crawling back, huh kjfkdfjkds. Sorry it's been so long, work got busy, i've been addicted to stardew valley, i started open uni. it rlly be like that sometimes. Again, just want to say that I adore this au and i'm so so attached to these characters I definitely won't abandon this anytime soon and if i was going to, i would definitely tell you guys! so i really appreciate your patience and i hope you continue to enjoy this series!! As always, thank you to everyone who reads, and leaves kudos and comments, you're amazing <3333

As Jon walked back to his desk, he noticed a woman standing in reception. Her fierce expression violently teetering between bored dismissal and burning impatience, her quick, intelligent eyes darting around, scrutinising everything they landed on. She wore what looked like a black police uniform, her hair swept into a matching hijab, and deadly-looking heavy boots radiating danger and violence against the wooden floor. 

Jon approached slowly. “Hi, ah, can I, can I help you?” The woman turned to look at him startlingly fast, her eyebrows quirking in questioning, expression pinching. 

“I’m looking for Sasha James.” Her words were clipped, as though they hurt to speak aloud. Her dark eyes watched him unnervingly. “The head archivist.” 

“Right, well, ah, she’s not here at the moment.” Jon swallowed as her gaze sharpened, searching him for any hint of deceit. “Who, ah, who are you? And is there anything I could maybe help with?”

“Basira.” The woman said, as though the words were being pulled out of her against her will. “I’m on of the officers looking into Gertrude’s murder.” Basira kicked an unassuming cardboard box by her feet with a dull thud. The lid was secured with tape and the white label describing the contents left unmarked. “I wanted to give this to her.” 

Jon nodded, wearily eyeing the sturdy truncheon that jostled against Basira’s hip as she moved. “I, ah, I could take it? And give it to her.” 

Basira’s eyes roamed over Jon, leaving him feeling vulnerable and open. As though she was scrutinising every aspect of his being, observing objectively. Basira seemed to reach a satisfying conclusion.

With a small nod, she slid the box across to Jon with her foot. “Be careful. It’s heavy.” Her movements seemed impossibly fluid, more similar to a liquid than a solid, sitting natural on her frame. 

“Right. Thanks.” Jon offered a strained smile that wasn’t returned. “What’s inside?” 

Basira ignored his question, checking her watch with a sigh of frustration. “I’ve got to go. Tell Sasha I said hi.” And without a goodbye, Basira was walking away, steps surprisingly light considering her thick boots. 

Jon tore his gaze from the bland stone wall and bent down to lift the lid. Inside were black tapes, their white wheels standing starkly against the dark plastic. The white labels on them had names scrawled across in thick, black ink, the letters curling and intertwining. 

Jon was alone in the office space, Tim and Martin’s desks sitting vacant and empty, computer screens blank, waiting to be woken up. With a sigh, he reached under the box, and lifted it up. Basira definitely wasn’t wrong when she said it was heavy. 

The tapes rattled against each other as Jon carried the box to Sasha’s vacant office, pushing open the solid door with a groan, and precariously managing to not spill the tapes all over the floor as he thumped it down onto her desk. He groaned, stretching out his shoulders. 

His shoes squeaked against the wooden floor as he turned to leave, but one of the tapes caught his eye. Carrying the box had jostled them around, and this had clearly been one that was at the bottom. It was battered, worn in the corners where a duller, lighter shade of black peeked through, the white label peeling and curling in on itself, secured with brown tape on the top and bottom. Jon reached out, watching as an observer in his own body as his arm moved of its own accord. His fingers ghosted against the cold plastic, when the door to the office groaned open in protest. 

Jon took a step back as Sasha walked in, startling at the sight of him, her hand splayed across her chest. “Jon! Hi!” She smiled instinctively, forehead wrinkling in confusion. “Not that I don’t appreciate the visit, but what, um, what are you doing in here?” 

“A police officer was here earlier, she, ah, said her name was Basira.” Jon gestured to the box, which sat open on the desk, lid balanced against the side. “She dropped this off for you. And says hi.” 

Sasha walked over and started rifling through the tapes, an expression of barely contained excitement lighting her face, eyes wide and drinking it all in. 

A giddy smile bloomed across her features. “Wow. I can’t believe she actually gave them to me.” 

Jon frowned. “Sasha, I, ah, what’s so important about a box of tapes?” She hummed distractedly, leafing through the tapes, reading every label, fingers ghosting across the hard plastic. 

Sasha looked up, eyes alight with burning curiosity. “They’re, they’re Gertrude’s tapes, Jon. Taken from her office after...well after she initially disappeared. I thought they might have some important information about the entities. Or, or what happened to her.” She shivered, rubbing her hands on her arms, her eyes darting around the room. 

Jon’s skin prickled uncomfortably. “And Basira just handed these over? Aren’t they, well, police evidence?” 

Sasha smiled slyly. “Section thirty-one police are always more, hmm, willing to, bend the rules, shall we say.” The tapes clattered as she started removing them from the box, placing them gently on the desk. “Besides, I think she either wants us to solve the case, or suspects us of the murder.” Sasha shrugged. “Either way, I get the tapes so, it doesn’t really matter.” 

Jon opened his mouth to reply, when something stopped him. In the bottom of the box, he’d seen something winking at him. A quick flash of silver that glinted sharply, and then promptly disappeared back under the sea of black plastic. “Wait.” 

Sasha stilled her hand, looking at him with raised eyebrows. “What’s wrong?” 

Jon reached in, carefully moving tapes to one side, burrowing deeper for what he knew he’d seen. “I, ah, saw something. At the bottom. It didn’t look like a tape.” 

Sasha helped by removing the tapes Jon had set aside, piling them on the worn desk. “What was it?” 

Jon felt his hands clasp around something metal and cool, sharp edges biting into the soft skin of his palm. He pulled it out, ignoring the red indents on his hand, and lifted it up, the silver catching the weak yellow light and reflecting it in erratic shafts. 

“It’s a key.” Jon said, examining it. There was nothing particularly abnormal about it; it didn’t look old or rusted, the prongs looked regular, perhaps a little sharp but that might be down to its apparent age, and it fit nicely into his palm. It looked just like his own house key. 

Sasha squinted, eyebrows drawn together as she tried to decipher it. “What do you think it opens?” Her voice was light with wonder, an undercurrent of excitement buzzing and thrumming, scarcely contained as it bled through. 

“Not sure.” Jon absentmindedly ran his fingers across the cold surface. “It looks like a house key, but that makes no sense.” 

Sasha sighed, taking a step back from where she’d eagerly crowded into Jon’s space. “Gertrude had so many secrets. I guess this will just have to say another one for a while.” 

“Yeah, I think-” Jon stilled as his fingers ran over rough metal, a stark contrast to the smooth surface he’d felt before. Examining the key closer, he saw raised lettering across the bottom, nearly invisible against the uniform silver. “Do you see that?”

Sasha leaned closer, her curls tickling his cheeks gently. “No?” She glanced over her glasses perched low on her nose, covering Jon’s hand with her warm ones to turn the angle of the key. “Wait! There!” Sasha gasped, reaching for a pen to scrawl the letting across the back of her palm. 

Jon looked at the dark ink splashed on her palm, the curling letters surprisingly neat and steady. “Vanguard? What does that mean?” Excitement flickered vividly in his chest, humming loudly under his skin, fizzing rapidly through his veins. He knew his expression mirrored Sasha’s, eyes wide with wonder, and brilliant smiles almost blindingly bright. 

Sasha bit her lip, considering the key with hooded eyes. “Not too sure. It could be a council garage, maybe? Or a storage unit?” 

Jon could feel the infectious anticipation, the air electrified around them. “Storing what? More tapes?” 

Sasha shook her head quickly. “No, I don’t think so. There were loads of tapes found in her office and apartment.” She beamed at Jon. “It could be anything.” 

“Dead bodies?” Jon asked, mostly joking. Although from what he’d heard about Gertrude, he definitely wouldn’t be surprised. 

Sasha’s eyebrows laid flat. “You’ve been spending too much time with Tim.” Jon huffed a laugh, which she mimicked. “Jon.” Her voice was low with seriousness. “Whatever this key leads to, it could tell us what happened to her. Who killed her.” Sasha stared off into the distance, as though seeing something Jon couldn’t. “We’ll have to be careful.” 

Jon nodded, eyeing the mass of black tapes on Sasha’s tape. “Agreed.” 

“I’ll keep this locked away somewhere, until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.” Sasha said, expression slightly grim. “We’ll have to be discreet about this. I’ll tell Tim, you can tell Martin, and then we can decide what we want to do.” 

“Okay.” The conversation had come to a natural end, so Jon turned to leave. Just as he reached for the cool, brass handle, he glanced back. “Do you really think it could contain evidence for who killed her?”

Sasha, who was sat behind the broad desk, with a thick tape player laid ominously out in front of her, glanced up, expression impassive. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Part of me hopes there is. But also, I can’t help but feel once we solve the case...it’s going to change everything.” 

Jon nodded, opening the heavy door, its hinges screeching. “Yeah. Me too.”


End file.
